1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of sporting and entertainment vehicles such as skates. More specifically the present invention relates to a set of wheeled skates, each skate including a shoe cradle for receiving a user shoe and a shoe harness for fastening around and releasibly securing a user shoe into the shoe cradle, a wheel mounting disk secured to each side of the shoe cradle with a disk elevation mechanism for selectively elevating and lowering shoe cradle relative to the corresponding wheel mounting disk, an annular wheel rotatably mounted around the wheel mounting disk and retained by and riding on bearings within a bearing raceway located between the wheel mounting disk circumferential surface and the annular wheel inward surface, the bearing raceway containing several ball or roller bearings.
The shoe cradle preferably includes a cradle bottom wall having a bottom wall forward end, a bottom wall rearward end and two opposing and spaced apart bottom wall sides, each bottom wall side being integral with an upright cradle side wall. A brake pad arm protrudes rearwardly and angles downwardly from the cradle bottom wall rearward end, terminating in a substantially horizontal and planar arm contact end fitted with a replaceable brake pad.
Each disk elevation mechanism preferably includes an outwardly opening vertical drive screw guide slot in each of the cradle side walls, and a drive screw guide flange extending from the center of each wheel mounting disk into the adjacent guide slot, such that the drive screw guide flange is slidable upwardly and downwardly within the drive screw guide slot, each guide flange having a vertical and internally threaded drive screw bore, and a drive screw passageway extending upwardly from the bottom of each cradle side wall directly below and opening upwardly into the corresponding guide slot, and a drive screw extending vertically upwardly through and into and threadedly engaging the drive screw bore in the guide flange. interior or with an adhesive.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have long been shoe mounted wheeled skates, well known as roller skates. Some roller skates have had two wheels, one on each side, and some have had four wheels, two on each side, mounted on narrow and bendable axles. What has been lacking is a skate with wheels attached to the shoe cradle with solid, sturdy broad contact. Also lacking has been independent wheel elevating means for selectively elevating and lowering individual wheels relative to the shoe cradle.
Segerberg, U.S. Pat. No. 577,628, issued on Feb. 23, 1897, discloses a roller skate having two opposing and independently mounted wheels which are angled to converge and abut each other at their lower ends and having squeeze bulb activated brakes. The Segerberg wheels ride on narrow, bearing mounted axles.
Domis, U.S. Pat. No. 864,622, issued on Aug. 27, 1907, teaches a roller skate having a shoe cradle plate with shoe securing straps and having two wheels, one mounted on each side of the shoe cradle plate on independent axles extending into axle ports in brackets secured to the upper surface of the cradle plate. The wheels are mounted in staggered relation with the intention of permitting the user to more easily execute certain turns.
Fulton, U.S. Pat. No. 824,108, issued on Jun. 26, 1908, reveals a roller skate having a shoe cradle and two wheels mounted on opposing sides of the cradle and a wheel axle secured across the cradle. The wheel axle has an axle middle segment with a square cross section and has axle end segments with round cross sections, two intermediate bars secured to the axle by means of U-shaped screw clamps and being curled upwardly so that they do not catch on the ground.
Nanz, U.S. Pat. No. 1,751,942, issued on Mar. 25, 1930, discloses a roller skate. Nanz includes a frame having a fixed foot rest and a pair of freely rotatable traction wheels of unequal size mounted on opposite sides of the frame. The larger wheel is journaled above the foot rest while the smaller wheel is journaled below the foot rest.
Pavincle, U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,643, issued on Sep. 17, 1985, teaches skating device. The Pavincle skate has two wheels, each wheel being over four inches in diameter and capable of turning a corner by merely shifting the weight of the skater body so as to apply a turning force upon either the inside or outside wheel of each skate relative to the opposite wheel. Pavincle includes a frame constructed to accommodate the foot of a skater, a first and second wheel, a wheel assembly for rotationally mounting the first and second wheels on opposite sides of the frame, the wheel assembly including a narrow wheel axle for each wheel, ball bearings mounted on each axle and unidirectional needle bearings for each wheel to permit rotation of the first and second wheel in only one direction, and suspension means for pivotally coupling each wheel axle to the frame. Each suspension means has a suspension pivot axis which is offset from each wheel axle so that each wheel axle is displaced relative to the suspension axis to cause the skate to turn based upon the distribution of the weight of the foot on the frame.
Lin, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,937, issued on Dec. 1, 1987, discloses a two-wheeled combination roller skate-ski. Lin, et al., includes a flat substantially rectangular base with four sides, two opposing sides being longitudinal sides, two other opposing sides being transverse sides, safety foot straps attached to the base for retaining a player foot on the base, and a pair of wheels disposed respectively outwardly of two opposing sides of the base such that intersections of a plane in which the base lies and two circles defined by the wheels constitute respective chords of the circles.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a wheeled skate having a shoe cradle and wheels attached to the shoe cradle with solid, sturdy broad contact.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a wheeled skate having annular wheels mounted on wheel mounting disks fixedly secured to opposing sides of the shoe cradle.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide such a wheeled skate having independent wheel elevating means for selectively elevating and lowering individual wheels relative to the shoe cradle.
It is finally an object of the present invention to provide such a wheeled skate which is sturdy, highly maneuverable and relatively inexpensive to manufacture.